Fubo is bringing its fight against Fox Corporation, the Walt Disney Company and Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) to the court of public opinion.
On Tuesday, mere hours after the company filed an antitrust lawsuit against the three broadcasters over their plans to develop a rival sports-inclusive streaming service, Fubo launched a new website called “Save My Sports” that encourages sports fans to contact their local representatives about the matter.
On the website, executives for Fubo complained that Fox, Disney and WBD were not being fair by launching a sports-focused joint venture that will develop a streaming service to take on its own.
Specifically, Fubo takes issue with the fact that, as planned, the broadcaster-backed streaming service will only offer broadcast and cable channels that carry sports, like ESPN and Fox Sports 1, while excluding networks like CNN and FX.
“Right now, we can’t offer you a bundle of just the sports channels you want, at the right price,” Fubo CEO David Gandler wrote on the Save My Sports website. “These content partners require us to license and broadcast to you channels you do not want. This inflates the price we have to charge you.”
Gandler said a streaming-only joint venture “might sound like a solution, but — as stated in our lawsuit — we believe a marketplace that offers only one sports-focused package of channels is monopolistic, nd a monopoly can charge whatever rates it wants because there will be no competition – no competition to keep prices low to attract customers.”
“Monopolies also don’t need to keep coming up with innovative and intuitive product features to make the sports streaming experience the best it can be,” Gandler affirmed.
To the contrary, Fubo positions itself as an innovative sports-inclusive streaming service that has broken new ground over the past few years, to include the development of novel features like live sports statistics and participation in “interactive quizzes while watching live sports,” according to a copy of the company’s legal complaint.
“Fubo was the first company to integrate, within the same platform, live sports streaming, free gaming, and live stats,” the complaint said.
Many of Fubo’s peers have replicated some of those features, including YouTube TV, which offers real-time sports stats on TV and mobile apps during most professional sports competitions. But Fubo said its service is remarkable by bringing to market new and innovating ways to watch live sports and related content, even while being hamstrung by antiquated cable-era carriage rules imposed by broadcasters.
To that end, Fubo complained that the three broadcasters “have restricted Fubo’s ability to offer customers DVR and video on-demand features,” which “[diminishes] the attractiveness of Fubo’s product to consumers.” The company didn’t specify which DVR and video on-demand features it was prohibited from offering; as it stands now, Fubo offers most customers access to a cloud-based DVR where they can watch and record programs, and it also connects subscribers with the video on-demand catalog from most of its programming partners.
On its Save My Sports website, Fubo offers a button where customers can post a pre-written message targeting several federal lawmakers, including New York Senator Chuck Schumer and Illinois Senator Richard Durbin, with an encouragement that they “back this pivotal fight.” For those without Twitter, Fubo also offers a list of a dozen federal lawmakers and their phone numbers, and encourages sports fans to let them “know that you’re against this joint venture.”
